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For the historically inclined, their is an interesting story about the recent recovery and preservation of one of those original pre-1900 baselines, mentioned in the text on Dusty's page, this one being from 1848. Go to the POB magazine website, click on archives, type in "bodie island" in the search box, and the story will come up.

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I just posted a witness post for AE8944, (have yet to find the marker itself though, will have to wait for some snow melt) I have also posted a couple of witness posts for ON0783. None of those are ledgible in the pictures though. At the same time they can give a sense of what to look for in the ditches and along the highways.

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I added british Marker and the currently popular orange Carsonite Witness Post.

Thanks for everyone sending the photos of more local governments' markers. Unfortunately, I've made the decision not to post each and every states' marker type (and cities' as well) unless it is unusual. Otherwise the page would get huge.

Maybe if I break my leg caching or benchmarking this summer, I'd have the time to redo the page, and move all local markers to a new page. I'll save those photos until I do that.

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Nice job Dusty, I bookmarked it, once it drys out and warms up (drys up, warms out?) here I'm going to check out a 'tidal' benchmark, curious to see if it's a different physical marker or just designation. Maybe I'll actually finish a roll of film doing it and scan them too.

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Here's one I came acrossed in the Arizona desert last weekend. I tried looking it up on the benchmarking site but there is no zip code for the area and the coordinate search doesn't seem to be working.

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This is almost certainly a cadstral marker, not a geodetic marker. Its very typical of those in Arizona. Remember, geodetic markers are nearly always set with a view toward extreme permanence and solidity, which would not be the case here, with this one sticking up so precariously.

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I've seen a few like this in Arizona that were marked as traverse points. Each was marked that it was with the Township and Range it was in and one of a series of similar marks - i.e. 4 of 12. Each one was set in a similar fashion to the one you found, up about 12 inches and in a pile of rocks.

The marks I found were in the Virgin River Gorge between Mesquite Nevada and St. George Utah near some caches.

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This one has troubled me some because it looks to me more like a sewer or maintenence access pipe with no real NGS markings on it, but based on the description and the fluerescent orange paint on it, I take it to be the marker in the description.

Am I just embarrassing myself here?

HT2261

Team Kender - "The Sun is coming up!" "No, the horizon is going down."

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There are some rare early metal BMs in Utah, cross-marked copper bolts from 1880s-1890s (I have a picture of one for http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=LP0487 , this one is from 1887, the photo is not super but feel free to use it in lieu of anything better), and triangle-marked copper bolts with letter designations from 1890s (apparently none has been documented by geobenchmakers yet, one is thought to be destroyed, but a couple of them may still exist around Salt Lake)

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There are some nice diagrams of different types of disks (reference, azimuth, magnetic, etc.) in an NGS technical report on Horizongal Control that you can look at in Adobe by clicking here. Go about 1/3 of the way down to see Figure 3a (12 USCGS types) and Figure 3b (8 NGS types and 1 NOS type).

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That's a cool link Black Dog... thanks for posting it! The old paper mentions that witness posts/signs are available to anyone that is willing to place them. I wonder if that is still the case. I would gladly place them near marks that don't have them. DaveD, are these still available to those of us that are willing to install them?

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I am curious to see DaveD's answer to your question about setting witness posts. One time I asked Deb Brown at NGS via e-mail if I could get some posts to set by control points I find. She replied that they do not do that because of the liability of having non-NGS personnel pounding posts into the ground and possibly damaging underground utilities.

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Dusty I sent you a photo of QZ0572,,a different type of benchmark> I dont see it with your others, aren't you interested in this one? If you did not recieve it let me know I will resend it,,I think it is a nice one,,a benchmark that one can go and camp in. What could be better, benchmark hunting and camping out, in the benchmark!

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I was talking with a fellow cacher last Saturday and he told me of finding a sign for a witness tree. I specifically asked him about the wording and he said it actually said "witness tree" and was attached to a tree. I've never seen any mention of anything like that here so I thought I'd mention it. I asked for pictures but he didn't take any. It was down in Arkansas somewhere.

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There used to help relocate the item. Usually ther are 3 or 4 to a benchmark or section etc. Not really used much anymore either. Most counties or other govt. entity will set other survey markers for "witness trees"

quote:Originally posted by RogBarn:

I was talking with a fellow cacher last Saturday and he told me of finding a sign for a witness tree. I specifically asked him about the wording and he said it actually said "witness tree" and was attached to a tree. I've never seen any mention of anything like that here so I thought I'd mention it. I asked for pictures but he didn't take any. It was down in Arkansas somewhere.